RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

  • LA: Letlow wins GOP primary runoff for US Senate

    Source: NBC News

    “Rep. Julia Letlow won the Republican primary runoff for Senate in Louisiana, NBC News projects, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming in another victory for President Donald Trump’s slate of preferred candidates. Trump endorsed Letlow early in the race, which went to a runoff after none of the GOP candidates won a majority of the initial primary vote on May 16. Trump waded into the state in an effort to oust GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. … Letlow will be in a strong position to win in November in the solidly Republican state, which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer, easily won the Democratic Senate nomination Saturday night.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/trump-backed-rep-julia-letlow-wins-louisiana-senate-primary-runoff-rcna351624

  • Serbian: Vucic Says He Will Resign as President

    Source: US News & World Report

    “Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday he would resign within weeks ⁠and ⁠the country will hold early presidential and parliamentary elections, following ⁠18 months of anti-government protests. The announcement by Vucic, who has been in power as president or prime minister for 12 years, came amid ​persistent anti-corruption demonstrations led by students and triggered by the collapse of an awning at a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad in November 2024, in which 16 people died. Protesters, opposition and rights groups ‌allege the railway station disaster was a sign of broader ‌government mismanagement of construction projects and corruption.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-06-27/serbia-president-vucic-says-to-resign-within-weeks-one-year-before-end-of-mandate

  • Uber expands US driver background checks after sexual assault lawsuits

    Source: Engadget

    “Uber is adopting a more stringent background check process for its drivers, which will expand the kinds of criminal convictions that will disqualify them from driving or delivering for the company. The ridesharing firm has announced its new standard for background checks, shortly after its shareholders sued the company’s board of directors and executive officers. … The company will start implementing its updated background check, which it believes is the strongest in the industry, starting on Monday. Under the new rules, violent felonies that involve armed robbery, aggravated assault and arson, as well child abuse and endangerment, strangulation and stalking, will disqualify drivers, even if their record was more than seven years ago. Uber already doesn’t sign on interested people who had been convicted of sexual assault, sex crimes involving minors, sexual offenses, murder or homicide, kidnapping and terrorism.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.engadget.com/2203130/uber-expands-us-driver-background-checks/

  • Uganda: Military chief orders shutdown of two media outlets

    Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]

    “The chief of Uganda’s military says he has ordered the closure of two of the country’s biggest media outlets. Muhoozi Kainerugaba said on Sunday that the Daily Monitor, the country’s largest independent daily newspaper, and NTV Uganda, one of the largest private broadcasters, were being shut down and would not reopen without his permission. ‘In Uganda, I do not believe in a free press!’ Kainerugaba, who is the president’s son, wrote on X. ‘From now on ALL bad stories about Uganda have to be cleared by my office!’ he said in one of a series of posts, adding that all media in Uganda would follow the rules, going forward.” (06/28/26)

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/28/ugandas-military-chief-orders-shutdown-of-two-media-outlets

  • KY: Beshear says four dead amid flooding

    Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

    “Four people have died due to flooding from thunderstorms in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said Saturday, and he declared a state of emergency with additional rainfall expected. Flash flood warnings were in effect Saturday for parts of Kentucky and Indiana amid heavy rainfall, according to the National Weather Service. The agency late Saturday afternoon said between 100 and 250 millimetres of rain had already fallen in some parts of southwestern Indiana, with more possible. Beshear’s office said up to 178 millimetres of rain were expected in parts of his state through the late evening.” (06/28/26)

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kentucky-flooding-9.7251730

  • “Vespa is a way of life”: Thousands ride through Rome as Italy’s iconic scooter turns 80

    Source: France 24 [French state media]

    “An icon of the Italian way of life, the Vespa was celebrating its 80th birthday on Saturday, as thousands of riders paraded through Rome on the legendary scooters. A few donned biker jackets despite the scorching heat while others opted for t-shirts, the hum of their machines filling the capital with a colourful buzz. … The Vespa, which means ‘wasp’ in Italian – a reference to the sound of its engine – was born on 23 April 1946, when the first patent for its manufacture was filed in Italy by Piaggio. It is still produced at the Pontedera site in Tuscany. … Thousands of ‘Vespisti’ from all over the globe turned up in the scooters, which are instantly recognisable because of their rounded lines, their brightly coloured metal bodywork and their round headlight mounted on the handlebars.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260627-vespa-is-a-way-of-life-thousands-ride-through-rome-as-italy-s-iconic-scooter-turns-80

  • Trump to nominate former Oklahoma state trooper as ICE gang shot-caller

    Source: United Press International

    “President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he nominated former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to be director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Schroyer, a senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security and retired U.S. Marine, will replace former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who announced in April that he would leave the agency on May 31. Trump announced that he is nominating Schroyer for the position in a post on Truth Social, touting his 29 years in law enforcement, including in previous partnership roles with ICE.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/06/27/trump-nominates-ice-director-lance-schroyer/7411782603608/

  • Vatican accuses EU of double standards on war

    Source: Politico

    “Opening Pope Leo XIV’s closed-door conference of the world’s cardinals on war, the Vatican’s doctrinal chief accused the European Union of applying international law selectively, sanctioning some military invasions while treating others differently. The rare gathering was called by Leo to examine what he calls a global “culture of power” that fuels modern conflict and to consider how the Church should respond. A central focus of the discussions was the pope’s effort to rethink the traditional doctrine of a just war, which he argues has too often been invoked to justify military action. That position has already brought Leo into conflict with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who challenged the pope’s interpretation of Catholic teaching after Leo questioned whether the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran could meet the criteria of a just war.” (06/28/26)

    https://www.politico.eu/article/vatican-pope-leo-xiv-accuses-eu-of-double-standards-on-war

  • Trump regime allows Anthropic to release Mythos AI model to some companies, government agencies

    Source: CNBC

    “The U.S. government on Friday granted Anthropic permission to release its Mythos 5 model to a group of roughly 100 companies and federal agencies, CNBC has confirmed. The decision, detailed by the Commerce Department in a letter to Anthropic, marks a major step forward in the negotiations between the Trump administration and the artificial intelligence company, which have been engaged in a two-week standoff over its latest models: Fable 5 and Mythos 5.” [editor’s note: The US government enjoys precisely zero right to decide whether AI creators can release their models, or if so to whom – TLK] (06/27/26)

    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/26/us-government-anthropic-claude-mythos5-ai.html

  • China fires up world’s biggest superconducting magnet for nuclear fusion project

    Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]

    “The world’s biggest superconducting magnet for a nuclear fusion reactor has passed final tests as part of China’s CRAFT ‘artificial sun’ project, eclipsing international performance benchmarks. The assembly comprises two coils: a toroidal-field magnet that acts as a magnetic cage, and a central solenoid that serves as the igniter. The results, achieved by researchers with the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, clear a major engineering hurdle on the path to confining a plasma hotter than the sun’s core, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday. The project – the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology – aims to create a miniature sun at over 100 million degrees Celsius (over 180 million Fahrenheit) and trap it inside a doughnut-shaped metal cage to generate electricity.” (06/28/26)

    https://archive.is/iV8hX


  • In defense of anonymity, the guard dog of free expression

    Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
    by Sarah McLaughlin

    “Among social media commenters, columnists, and even heads of state, it’s a typical refrain: If we just rid ourselves of that pesky internet anonymity and pseudonymity, we will have a cleaner, better, happier world. Anonymity, the common sentiment goes, is the weapon of the evil and the cruel. Despite some prevalent misconceptions, anonymity is not an invention of social media, email, or the internet age. The American founding fathers, for example, took great advantage of pseudonymous and anonymous expression, as have denizens of Rome for hundreds of years on the city’s ‘talking statues.’ Opposition to anonymity is not new either — far from it. … Anonymity and pseudonymity are not weapons trained upon the vulnerable. Rather, anonymity is the protector of the vulnerable, the shield between them and consequences ranging from embarrassment to social fallout to the worst forms of government oppression.” (06/26/26)

    https://www.fire.org/news/blogs/free-speech-dispatch/defense-anonymity-guard-dog-free-expression

  • Blame the War, Not the Peace Deal, for Iran’s Leverage

    Source: The American Conservative
    by Ted Snider

    “The Trump administration is right to defend the MOU as necessary and good. But it is good because it ends the war instead of allowing it to continue on its increasingly damaging path. They are wrong to defend it as an improvement over the JCPOA or even the deal that was on the table before the U.S. and Israel attacked this February. The Islamic Republic, liberated from maximum pressure sanctions and having demonstrated its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and withstand major attacks, will be in a stronger position than perhaps ever before. A final agreement should be signed; the war should never have been fought.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/blame-the-war-not-the-peace-deal-for-irans-new-leverage/

  • Mail Voting Proposal: Make an Example of Steiner

    Source: Garrison Center
    by Thomas L Knapp

    “I’ve got mixed opinions on voting itself (for one thing, I’m not sure it accomplishes much), and strong opinions on mail (the government should get entirely out of the matter and let the private sector handle it), but this particular matter is about rule of law. Regardless of whether I like the laws, or how they’re made, or who gets to make them, I’m a big supporter of holding the government and its officials TO the laws they claim are so important for OUR ‘protection.'” (06/28/26)

    https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20716

  • In Defense of “Sweatshops”: Path to End Poverty Runs through Cheap Labor

    Source: Independent Institute
    by Benjamin Powell

    “Garment factories do not conscript workers when they open in Dhaka, Bangladesh, or Jakarta, Indonesia. Many would-be workers walk for hours, lie about their age, and bribe their way into getting jobs. That is not victimhood. That is how people behave when they’ve found an opportunity to improve their lives. The U.N. panjandrums never consider the alternatives to low-wage factory work in poverty-ridden countries. The reality is brutal: subsistence farming at the mercy of monsoon season, scavenging, informal day labor, and even prostitution.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/06/27/in-defense-of-sweatshops/

  • None Dare Call It Socialism

    Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
    by Jacob G Hornberger

    “The increasing popularity of democratic socialism is causing the American right-wing, as well as many libertarians, to go bananas. After the Mamdani candidates won, President Trump declared, ‘America the beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!’ At the same time, some rightwing commentators and libertarian commentators are feverishly reminding people of the millions of people who have died as a result of socialism and communism. I find all of this fierce reaction among both conservatives and libertarians to the soaring popularity of socialism, especially among young people, to be quite amusing. Why? Because right-wingers and a very large percentage of libertarians are among the fiercest supporters of socialist programs that one could ever find … but with one caveat: No one is permitted to refer to such socialist programs as ‘socialism.'” (06/26/26)

    https://www.fff.org/2026/06/26/none-dare-call-it-socialism-2/

  • What capitalism [sic] will look like in space

    Source: New York Post
    by Rainer Zitelmann

    “Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1977: ‘The impact of telecommunications satellites on the entire human race will be at least the same impact as the advent of the telephone in so-called developed societies.’ Today, that prediction has long been reality. Few people realize how deeply daily life already depends on space infrastructure. If all satellites suddenly failed, navigation systems would collapse. Smartphones and vehicles could no longer determine location accurately. Weather forecasts would become unavailable. Airports would descend into chaos without GPS-based time and positioning data. Traffic signals would desynchronize, leading to chaos on the roads. Supply chains that depend on satellite-supported logistics would disintegrate. Even financial transactions would grind to a halt, as precise time signals via satellites are vital for synchronizing debits and credits.” (06/27/26)

    https://nypost.com/2026/06/27/opinion/what-capitalism-will-look-like-in-space/

  • We’re against easing the pain of paying tax

    Source: Adam Smith Institute
    by Tim Worstall

    “Yes, yes, we know, paying tax is the price of partaking in civilisation. But that’s still a price, a cost. We think that people should see, up close and personal, the cost of that civilisation being built on their money. We are therefore against this: ‘Income tax will be automatically deducted from state pensions for millions of retirees under plans being considered by Labour, The Telegraph understands.’ Not because the state pension should, or should not, be taxed. But because this is easy taxation. Some to many will not really even note it. Tax should be painful so that proper consideration be given to how much is being demanded.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/were-against-easing-the-pain-of-paying-tax

  • “You’re next!” Democrats discover the mob has a mind of its own.

    Source: The Hill
    by Jonathan Turley

    “‘You’re next!’ This chant, at the victory celebration of the Democratic Socialists this week, was a message not for the oligarchs or the billionaires, but for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the Democratic establishment. They were threatening that Jeffries would be the next to lose his House seat to a socialist candidate. It was a scene that has recurred throughout history, as establishment leaders are overtaken by the very mobs they sought to use for their own purposes.” (06/27/26)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5943132-rage-republic-democratic-downfall/

  • Iran War’s Biggest Winners: Defense Contractors & Big Oil

    Source: Common Dreams
    by Elliott Negin

    “Now that the United States and Iran have signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding ending their war (at least for now) the general public and pundits have been weighing in on who won. A CBS-YouGov survey released Sunday found that 37% of Americans think the memorandum of understanding (MOU) favors Iran, while 22% believe the United States got the better deal. Nearly half (47%) say both sides broke even. Newsweek, meanwhile, queried 10 military experts ranging from a former US Navy admiral and a former Pentagon official to five think tank scholars and two professors of international relations. Seven said Iran won the war. Two said ‘no one’. Only one thought the United States came out on top, but added, ‘Neither side will gain a complete victory.'” (06/27/26)

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/contractors-big-oil-win-iran-war

  • Recognizing the dangers of democracy

    Source: The Price of Liberty
    by Nathan Barton

    “Most, if not all, libertarians know the parable of the wolves and the sheep: what Hawai’i did was that very thing: supposedly, a majority of Hawaiians don’t want to be around guns. And therefore, elected a majority of conscript parents (senators) and people’s representatives that also don’t like to have guns around, either. In a democracy, anything is theoretically possible if a majority votes for it. Even if that majority, for example, consists of 5,000,001 out of 10,000,000 voters. (And since there are no quorums for voting, and so many people either don’t vote or have their votes ignored, that ten million voters would be ‘served democratically’ if only 10% of the voters turned out and the vote was 500,001 to 499,999.) The wolves (well, voters) get to enjoy their choice: veal Parmasan or veal stew, but the sheep are dead and eaten regardless.” (06/27/26)

    https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/06/27/recognizing-the-dangers-of-democracy/

  • Leftist Dems thrown under bus, with socialists in the driver’s seat

    Source: Fox News
    by Tom Del Beccaro

    “Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman has lost his re-election bid in New York. In the olden days (20 years ago), such an outcome was inconceivable. In the modern Democrat Party, however, the rush to socialism knows no loyalty. No matter what yesterday’s socialist or big government proponent did for the cause, that is not good enough for the current socialists, let alone tomorrow’s. In history, the run-up to class warfare/high tax/redistributionist policies we associate with socialism becomes a spiraling rush. Examples include the end of the Roman Republic and the end of the ancient Greek Athenian democracy. The same is true within the Democrat Party today. James Carville recently said the Democrat Party is ‘not a left-wing party.’ Contrary to his spin, however, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have the momentum within the Democrat Party.” (06/27/26)

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/leftist-democrats-thrown-bus-socialists-drivers-seat

  • The President’s Birthright Citizenship Order is Not Just Unconstitutional. It’s Crazy

    Source: Washington Monthly
    by Orville Vernon Burton & Armand Derfner

    “The president’s challenge to birthright citizenship is more than unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court will probably hold—it’s crazy. Why? Because it would affect not just children born in the future—as it claims—but would threaten the citizenship of every living, native-born American, whether aged 25, 50, or 75. It would also mean that a U.S. birth certificate would be inadequate to prove American citizenship, thereby becoming almost useless. How can this be? It is all about two words: ‘prospective’ and ‘retrospective.’ The executive order may be ‘prospective,’ but the Constitution of the United States is not.” (06/26/26)

    https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/06/26/the-presidents-birthright-citizenship-order-is-not-just-unconstitutional-its-crazy/

  • Poem: The Din

    Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
    by Caitlin Johnstone

    “They’re designing park benches / so that homeless people can’t sleep on them / and placing metal spikes beneath overpasses / so they can’t be used as shelter. / Jerry Seinfeld says Palestine doesn’t exist / and that sometimes socks go missing in the dryer, / wocka wocka ha ha ha / it’s funny because it’s a witty observation / about life’s everyday little goofy goofs. / Fast food wrappers blow in the wind / like the leaves used to do. / Duct-taped gargoyles with garbage bag wings / peer down at the din of civilization / as we march over the sidewalk sleepers / to our Jobs, / stepping over dead bodies / while staring at our phones / and counting the minutes / til we can go home to our sofas / and watch wocka wocka …” (06/27/26)

    https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/27/the-din/

  • How fearmongering sets policy, from “marihuana” to solar to AI

    Source: Los Angeles Times
    by LZ Granderson

    “So much about the technology has been draped in doomsday scenarios and Terminator movies. It’s hard sometimes to separate the impossible from the improbable. Even more difficult if you can’t tell if the technology is meant for the good of all or just aiming to be good for someone’s bottom line. Maybe, unlike in the ‘marihuana’ prohibition era, the scary warnings are valid. But now just as then, we need to separate fact from myth before setting policy.” (06/26/26)

    https://archive.is/KPKOX

  • Why I Launched a Writing Community for Education Entrepreneurs

    Source: Foundation for Economic Education
    by Nasiyah Isra-Ul

    “People often ask me how I got so involved in writing and public speaking. I’ve been a passionate writer for most of my life, starting to journal, write short stories, and willingly craft essays in my homeschool program outside of what was required in the curriculum by age 11. By the time I was a teenager, I was writing curriculum, developing language arts training for students, and starting a blog. I was also eventually writing for college, as one of the youngest in my classes, and my professors always said they loved reading my papers first because they were ‘always so engaging and well-written.’ Now, in my early twenties, I’ve written graduate-level papers, gotten published in a variety of news outlets, blog frequently, authored multiple books, and often write for the Lab. This didn’t happen overnight. It took years of encouragement, learning, and lots of peer mentorship to get to this point.” (06/26/26)

    https://fee.org/articles/why-i-launched-a-writing-community-for-education-entrepreneurs/

  • What if Trump is right to pump the brakes on the most advanced AI?

    Source: Washington Post
    by Robert Wright

    “Like opponents of various other AI restrictions, [Alex] Stamos worries about handing an advantage to China — where, he noted, an impressive new model called GLM-5.2 had been unveiled that very week. ‘It is a great, great week for the Chinese AI industry, a fantastic week,’ he said, ‘and a huge own goal for the United States in the race to dominate the 21st century via domination of AI.’ I’m not sure what exactly it would mean for America to ‘dominate the 21st century’ — and I’m far from sure that living in a century without such domination would be as unpleasant as Stamos seems to think. But I do feel sure that the ‘race with China’ theme so often deployed in discussions of AI regulation has some downsides, and that this particular deployment is a good example.” (06/26/26)

    https://archive.is/jMnxk

  • Democrats Ask: Obama Who?

    Source: Town Hall
    by JT Young

    “Last week, Democrats came to Chicago to erect a cenotaph to their past. In the words of Shakespeare’s Mark Antony, they did not come to praise Obama as much as to bury him. They did so because they had already buried the party that nominated him twice. In Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection victory, he received the votes of 17 percent of conservatives. Just twelve years later, in 2024, Kamala Harris received nine percent of conservative voters. And of that nine percent, a good many were undoubtedly not voting for Harris but were ‘never Trumpers’ voting against Donald Trump. The point is: Obama once had a significant appeal to conservatives. That no longer holds for Democrats. The reason is that Democrats are not what they once were, or at least the moderates they were able to successfully pose as being..” (06/27/26)

    https://townhall.com/columnists/jtyoung/2026/06/27/democrats-ask-obama-who-n2678395

  • Reclaiming the Third Space

    Source: Brownstone Institute
    by Mollie Engelhart

    “The first space is home. It is where our domestic identity lives. Family, rest, intimacy, and routine. The second space is work. It is where we contribute, produce, and create value. The third space exists in between. It is the neutral, shared place where people gather informally, without obligation or performance. Historically, these were cafés, churches, town squares, barber shops, libraries, local diners, pubs, and markets. Places where you could show up, be recognized, and belong without needing to achieve or prove anything.” (06/26/26)

    https://brownstone.org/articles/reclaiming-the-third-space/

  • “DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION”

    Source: The Weekly Dish
    by Andrew Sullivan

    “Multiracial harmony, globalized joy, and love for America. The World Cup saves the 250th.” (06/26/26)

    https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/dude-lmao-this-is-a-gas-station-b5f

  • Under Pressure

    Source: Law & Liberty
    by Peter Campbell

    “Historical illiteracy has become a real problem in our time. The downsides of this have become rather glaring lately, as for instance in Tucker Carlson’s 2024 interview with Daryl Cooper, whom Carlson called ‘the most honest popular historian in the United States.’ Cooper claimed that Americans’ understanding of WWII was deeply flawed and that the true villain was Winston Churchill. The fact that some young Americans found this message sympathetic is very troubling and speaks volumes about our failure to educate the young about history. I regularly tell my students that reading history is their best defense against disinformation.” (06/26/26)

    https://lawliberty.org/under-pressure/

  • Pakistan Has Never Looked So Important

    Source: Persuasion
    by Rashmee Roshan Lall

    “There’s only one winner of the Iran deal—the country that made it happen.” (06/26/26)

    https://www.persuasion.community/p/pakistan-has-never-looked-so-important

  • Trump’s Latest Election Power Grab Runs Through the Postal Service

    Source: Exiled Policy
    by Jason Pye

    “A new USPS rulemaking will prevent mail-in ballots in states that won’t comply with the administration’s demands.” (06/26/26)

    https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/trumps-latest-election-power-grab

  • Rogue Supreme Court Blesses Ethnic Cleansing

    Source: The American Prospect
    by Naomi Bethune & Ryan Cooper

    “Thursday was a decision day at the Supreme Court, and the American people got to enjoy the familiar experience of waiting on tenterhooks yet again to see which rights were going to be deleted this time. The answer was residency rights for hundreds of thousands of nonwhite immigrants. The most important of Thursday’s decisions was also the worst one: Mullin v. Doe, which overturned a lower-court order barring the Trump regime from removing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of nonwhite refugees. For months now, Haitian and Syrian recipients of the TPS program have been in limbo, with their legal status being held up by fragile pauses in lower-court rulings.” [editor’s note: shrewd commentary or whining nonsense? You be the judge – SAT] (06/26/26)

    https://prospect.org/2026/06/26/rogue-supreme-court-blesses-ethnic-cleansing-immigration-tps-trump-immigration-ice/

  • The Unfortunate Necessity of Court Packing to Stop America’s Authoritarian Drift

    Source: The UnPopulist
    by Andy Craig

    “A few years ago, court packing was a fringe idea with no realistic prospects. President Biden’s commission on Supreme Court reform pointedly declined to endorse adding seats, and no realistic vote count could reach 51 in the Senate—not only for expansion itself, but for nuking the legislative filibuster to bring it to a vote at all. That is no longer the case.” (06/26/26)

    https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-unfortunate-necessity-of-court

  • The Poverty of the UN’s Degrowth Agenda

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Vance Ginn

    “Global initiatives promise justice through economic restraint. In practice, they would make societies poorer and opportunity scarcer.” (06/26/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-poverty-of-the-uns-degrowth-agenda/

  • The Myth of Nationalist Victory: The Articles of Confederation and the Bank of North America

    Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
    by Joshua Mawhorter

    “It is not uncommon for people to conflate victory and liberty with centralization and inflation. Even in the case of the American Revolution—which was relatively decentralized—many at the time, and others since, argued that monetary inflation, standing armies and a state-centric approach to war, consolidation under a centralized national government, direct taxation, and central banking were all necessary to achieve victory and independence. The not-too-subtle implication is that liberty depends on big government.” (06/26/26)

    https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-nationalist-victory-articles-confederation-and-bank-north-america

  • Welcome to Gilded Age 2.0

    Source: Liberal Currents
    by Jake Pitre

    “Larry Ellison’s growing influence in tech, media, and politics embodies our new age of oligarchic control.” (06/26/26)

    https://www.liberalcurrents.com/welcome-to-gilded-age-2-0/

  • Justice Matters: Jury Service Gives Extraordinary Power for Ordinary People

    Source: Cato Institute
    by Matthew Cavedon

    https://www.cato.org/commentary/justice-matters-jury-service-gives-extraordinary-power-ordinary-people

  • Save American Lives & Prosperity by Cutting FDA Bureaucracy

    Source: American Greatness
    by Thaddeus G McCotter

    “By statute, the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to determine the safety and effectiveness of a new drug. If both requirements are met, the new drug is approved. The process usually takes roughly a decade. Most people would reasonably assume the lengthy approval process is due to the need to prove a new drug is safe for use by patients. But the years-long lag between a drug’s submission for approval and its arrival on the market often stems from the process of assessing its effectiveness. The easiest way to think about it is this: determining safety protects patients; determining effectiveness protects consumers.” (06/27/26)

    https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/27/save-american-lives-and-prosperity-by-cutting-the-fda-bureaucracy/

  • Don’t Let the Country’s Wet Blankets Ruin Independence Day

    Source: Reason
    by JD Tuccille

    “Leading up to our Independence Day party, my wife asked whether she should buy us T-shirts celebrating America’s 250th anniversary or stick with what we already have. We went with our existing garments. When the red, white, and blue string lights are up and the Gadsden flag is flying out front, my son will don his free speech shirt, my wife will wear one with USA printed across it, and my shirt will show an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware and text reading: ‘Americans. Willing to cross a frozen river to kill you. In your sleep. On Christmas. Not kidding, we’ve done it.’ It will be festive. But not everybody shares our enthusiasm for celebrating the nation’s birthday and the liberty at the core of its founding philosophy.” (06/26/26)

    https://reason.com/2026/06/26/dont-let-the-countrys-wet-blankets-ruin-independence-day/

  • Does US AI Depend on Big Companies Throwing Money in the Toilet? The Chinese Competition

    Source: CounterPunch
    by Dean Baker

    ‘Most of us tend to think that the people controlling billions, or even hundreds of billions of dollars, at major corporations have a pretty good idea of what they are doing with their companies’ money. But that clearly is not always the case.” (06/26/26)

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/26/does-us-ai-depend-on-big-companies-throwing-money-in-the-toilet-the-chinese-competition/

  • Should Smartphones be Banned in Schools? A Look at the Research

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Peter Jacobsen

    “Students react poorly at first but show improvement over time. Unfortunately, government schools are tricky places to run experiments.” (06/26/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/should-smartphones-be-banned-in-schools-a-look-at-the-research/

  • Auberon Herbert’s Practical Measures toward Liberty

    Source: Free Association
    by Sheldon Richman

    “‘I will now sketch,’ English classical liberal, ‘voluntaryist,’ Auberon Herbert wrote in ‘The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State’ (1885), ‘the practical measures by which, as it seems to me, we could give the best effect to a system of the widest possible liberty; our great object being to secure the limitation of services undertaken by the government.’ Herbert was one of the most earnest defenders of individualism in late Victorian England. He remains an inspiration today; seeing how he thought liberty should be protected ought to be instructive.” (06/26/26)

    https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-auberon-herbert-and-practical

  • The Iran war is the most unpopular major conflict in US history

    Source: Responsible Statecraft
    by Stephen Semler

    “During an April Senate hearing dominated by debate over the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth batted down criticisms from skeptical members of Congress, saying ‘I believe we do have the support of the American people’ in this conflict. Hegseth, it turns out, was wrong. Two months later, we can now confidently say that the Iran conflict is the most unpopular war in U.S. history. When I compared public opinion on the Iran War to previous major U.S. conflicts in May, it hadn’t quite reached the Vietnam War’s level of unpopularity. But polling from June shows that the Iran War has now sunk to negative 32% net support — below the negative 31% recorded in the final poll during Vietnam.” (06/26/26)

    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-polling-us/

  • Why Some Unions Are Joining the Call to “Freeze the Rent”

    Source: In These Times
    by Rebecca Burns

    “‘I urge you guys to freeze the rent, because we want our students to succeed.’ That was the appeal Alyssa Wright made to the nine members of New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) earlier this month, a little more than halfway through a packed, four-hour hearing in the Bronx on whether to freeze rents in the city’s some 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. Wright serves as a campus supervisor for a pilot program connecting City University of New York (CUNY) students with housing, healthcare and food resources. It’s a challenging role: Just that week, Wright said in her testimony, she had counseled five students facing eviction. Some 38% of CUNY’s 240,000 students experience housing insecurity, a condition that makes them twice as likely to withdraw or be placed on academic probation, according to a 2025 study based on a representative sample of students.” (06/26/26)

    https://inthesetimes.com/article/labor-tenant-union-mamdani-rent-freeze